Finishing the Job -- and Finishing Off Our Country

This isn't  exactly something that fills one with confidence, unless you want 4 more years of inflation, higher food prices,  higher electricity prices, higher rent; more pushing of the "green" agenda, more pushing of electric cars,  an unending stream of illegal aliens, more foreign policy blunders, more terrorism, more political correctness and gender insanity; and no COVID protection.

"Biden, 80, makes 2024 presidential run official: 'Let's finish this job'"

What I think he meant was, "Let's finish off this country."

Keep Masks in Health Care, & Elsewhere!

This opinion column from The Tyee (Canada) is about British Columbia, but if you change "BC" to "America",  you'll see it pertains to us as well:  Why BC Needs to Bring Back Mask Protections. We can ignore the virus, but the virus won’t ignore us.  Here's an excerpt:

"B.C. recently dropped the public health order requiring health-care workers to wear masks around sick patients, and vice versa.

Vulnerable people seek medical care in hospitals. Now, when pregnant women, babies, seniors, patients undergoing chemotherapy or those who’ve had an organ transplant enter a hospital, they’ll run a high risk of leaving with COVID-19 as well. For some of these people, the newly acquired infection will be terminal.

In addition, the province has also removed protections in long-term care homes, despite acknowledging age as the biggest risk factor for severe acute outcomes of COVID-19. To remove protections now in LTCs helps the virus; it does not help seniors."

Sound familiar?

Good News: a Second Bivalent Booster!

Hooray! Per the Washington Post, "Federal health officials this week updated their recommendations for coronavirus vaccinations to allow people who are at least 65 years old or immunocompromised to receive a second updated booster shot to strengthen protection for the most vulnerable Americans, even as the virus recedes."

The article answers these questions:

    Should I get a second bivalent booster?
    What if I’ve been vaccinated and had a recent covid-19 infection?
    Can I get the updated shots at the pharmacy where I got my first booster?
    What should I do if I haven’t gotten any coronavirus vaccine yet?
    What should I do if I have already gotten my initial shots but not a booster?
    Is there a concern about getting too many vaccines?

No matter what Biden says, COVID is not over, and people are still in danger, especially now that medical offices and even hospitals are removing mask requirements!

Argus Hamilton Quips

Here's just one anecdote from Mr. Hamilton's latest column:

"Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg gave a speech in which he blamed racist roads for the higher percentage of minority car wrecks and pedestrian injuries. He's the first Democrat to accuse roads of being racist. Well glory be, at last they can sue something for reparations that's not my asphalt."

Time for Self-Absorbed Adults to Grow Up & Learn Some Respect

I saw this headline today and was hardly surprised:  "Tourists spark outrage after posing for photos on Auschwitz train tracks". 

The article continues: "In some places, photos just shouldn’t be taken."

"An image of a woman posing on the train tracks in front of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland has gone viral, with many lambasting the tourists as insolent and tone-deaf."

"Maria Murphy, a producer with GB News in the U.K., tweeted the photo of the tourists on Saturday. In the image, a man is crouched on the train tracks, holding a cellphone to take a photo of a woman wearing red flannel and sunglasses. The woman is leaning back against the tracks, smiling with her face in the direction of the sun. Behind her, the entrance to Auschwitz, a former Nazi concentration camp where more than one million people were murdered, looms."

 -----------

Reading this story immediately made me think of a similar incident years ago, captured in this memorable 2016 column by Leonard Pitts, Jr. titled "People should not play Pokemon at Auschwitz". It's still appropriate today. Here it  is: 

-----------

"Here's something I never thought I'd have to say.

People should not play Pokemon at Auschwitz.

Nor at the Sept. 11 memorial in New York City, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, or Arlington National Cemetery.

You would think this obvious, but apparently it isn't. According to reports, people have been playing the game in these sacred spaces, often to the consternation of those who run them. As a tweet from Arlington put it last week, "We do not consider playing 'Pokemon Go' to be appropriate decorum on the grounds of ANC."

Apparently, we have reached a point in our devolution where people can't figure such things out for themselves.

As you may not know if you have a life, Pokemon - short for Pocket Monsters - are digital creatures, characters in what was originally a Japanese video game (there have since been movie and television spin-offs) that's been around since the '90s. The latest iteration, Pokemon Go, has become a global sensation since its July 6 release; Survey Monkey calls it the most successful mobile game in U.S. history, with 21 million daily active users.

You play it on your smartphone. It's synced with the real world so that Pokemon characters pop up on screen as you go various places. Your object is to capture them. Even, apparently, if you're at the crematoria in Auschwitz or John F. Kennedy's grave at Arlington.

When a Washington Post reporter questioned the propriety of doing this at the Holocaust Museum, "Angie," age 37, responded with the game's catchphrase: "Gotta catch 'em all."

To repeat: Angie, age 37, the Holocaust Museum . "Gotta catch 'em all."

I've never been so ready to throttle someone I've never even met. 

I'm trying really hard here not to do a you-kids-better-get-off-my-lawn rant, but seriously, once upon a time didn't adults seem more, well . adult? People were . older then. My dad turned 37 in 1963; I cannot, for the life of me, picture him twirling a Hula Hoop at Arlington.

You may find that a hypocritical observation coming from a guy who is pushing 60 and still reading Captain America, but I stand by it. I am of the generation that invented youth culture, that spat in the eye of aging, that declined to stop having - or being - fun once the crow's feet came; I've always felt that was one of the best things about us. We are, as Bob Dylan famously sang, "Forever Young."

But I submit that there is a glaring difference between being forever young and forever immature.

And, that when you lack the common sense and simple decency to put your toys aside and stand awed in a place sanctified by suffering and sacrifice, you have crossed fully from the one to the other. Nor are you just immature. You're shallow and self-centered, too. And you have no apparent capacity for reverence and reflection. 

But you are hardly unique. We live in a world where many of us have longer and more soulful relationships with the screens in their palms than the people in their lives. They forget to look up sometimes. And they miss things because of it.

Important things. Painful things. Things that anchor us and lift us and bind us in shared humanity.

The Holocaust Museum is a memorial to 11 million people who died, 1.1 million of them at the camps that comprise Auschwitz. The National Sept. 11th Memorial and Museum remembers 2,977 people who perished in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Arlington National Cemetery is America's most hallowed ground, final resting place for men and women who answered their country's call.

These places and places like them deserve to be treated with respect.

And there's something else I never thought I'd have to say"

Looting Walmart = Losing Walmart

 

I love this Gary Varvel cartoon!

Please Keep Wearing A Mask!

Via STAT newsletter today,  I read this article from the Annals of Internal Medicine titled Universal Masking in Health Care Settings: A Pandemic Strategy Whose Time Has Come and Gone, For Now.

The authors conclude that "Interactions between humans and pathogens are inherently dynamic and are constantly evolving, and we have achieved major advancements in the prevention and management of SARS-CoV-2 since the pathogen was initially identified in 2019. In recognition of these achievements, the time has come to deimplement policies that are not appropriate for an endemic pathogen when the expected benefits of such policies are low. Universal masking in health care is a policy whose time has come and gone ... for now."

Maybe it's just me, but if you  have chronic health problems and a weakened immune system, the last thing you want to do is get COVID.  And since COVID is airborne, why shouldn't you wear a mask?  It's no big deal to wear one. It is a big deal if you get sick from not wearing one. And if you are afraid to go to your doctor or to the hospital because you don't want to get sick from unmasked patients and doctors, what's the benefit of that?

It's Too Late To Try To Convince COVID-Deniers & Minimizers

There's a great column by Dan Diamond in the Washington Post today titled Covid is still a leading cause of death as the virus recedes; But many Americans dispute the data and the risks — much as they have throughout the pandemic

"Millions of Americans gathered maskless in homes and houses of worship this month for Passover, Easter and Ramadan — the latest evidence that coronavirus has retreated from public view as the pandemic winds down

"But retreat is not the same thing as eradication: Federal health officials say that covid remains one of the leading causes of death in the United States, tied to about 250 deaths daily, on average, mostly among the old and immunocompromised.

"Few Americans are treating it as a leading killer, however — in part because they are not hearing about those numbers, don’t trust them or don’t see them as relevant to their own lives.

"'We’re not presenting the data in a way that resonates with the American people,' said Deborah Birx, who served as the first White House coronavirus coordinator under President Donald Trump, citing research that finds elevated risks of health complications and death in the months after a covid infection."

-------------------

Four years later, Americans remain as selfish and ignorant as they did back in 2020.   If even a million American deaths haven't yet convinced them that COVID is a severe disease that kills and cripples, I don't know what else will.  And now masks have been removed even in medical care settings and in nursing homes because self-absorbed people want to "move on with their lives" and "see your smile".  For these people, their motto must be "Out of sight, out of mind."

21 Year Old Pentagon Leaker Arrested

Well, another embarrassment for the military. I realize they have lowered standards for the military, but this is bad news for the United States.

Per Hot Air:  "The leader of a small online gaming chat group where a trove of classified U.S. intelligence documents leaked over the last few months is a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.  The national guardsman, whose name is Jack Teixeira, oversaw a private online group named Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games."

That sounds very professional, doesn't it?

I suppose Jack Teixeira can always pull a Bradley Manning and become Jacqueline Teixeira in the near future.

Let's see if the media spends as much time and energy covering this news as they did covering Donald Trump's indictment.

Stop Biden's Green Obsession

Biden's green push gets more ridiculous every day and more harmful and unaffordable for the consumer.

Biden looks to boost EV sales with plan to cut vehicle emissions

"WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday proposed sweeping emissions cuts for new cars and trucks through 2032, a move it says could mean two out of every three new vehicles automakers sell will be electric within a decade.

The proposal, if finalized, represents the most aggressive U.S. vehicle emissions reduction plan to date, requiring 13% annual average pollution cuts and a 56% reduction in projected fleet average emissions over 2026 requirements. The EPA is also proposing new stricter emissions standards for medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks through 2032."

As Daniel Greenfield writes, "Biden Bans 53% of Americans From Buying Cars; The new poor will be anyone who can’t afford an electric car."

So he's going to use draconian measures to make sure all gas-powered cars flunk emissions tests so that their owners are forced to spend $50,000 they can't afford on electric vehicles they don't want?  Can we have some pushback by lawmakers, please?  I sure hope these measures never take effect, because otherwise we're all going to be begging for money on skid row. 

(Meanwhile, Kevin O'Leary wants to build his own oil refinery here. I'm all for it. Maybe he can also build his own gas-powered auto manufacturing plants here as well, so we can keep on driving!)

Endless, Senseless Evil

All you hear about is banning guns. The guns aren't human - they don't decide on their own to murder kids. Live-streaming isn't done on its own. It takes evil people who make a conscious decision to pick up the gun and the video. But you never hear about preventing or stopping the actions of these psychopathic monsters who abuse and kill; or about the parents who could have stopped them.  Unfortunately, we may have to have armed guards in every business from now on.

Younger & more evil: "A teenager and a 12-year-old were arrested in teens’ triple homicide in Central Florida, sheriff says." A 16 year old has since also been arrested.

Stone cold killer: "A man is dead and three others were wounded in a shooting outside a funeral home in Northeast D.C. on Tuesday afternoon, police say.   The shooting happened about 12:15 p.m. Tuesday as people who had just attended a funeral service were milling on the sidewalk outside the Stewart Funeral Home near 40th and Benning Road NE." 

Imagine if this were your grandmother:  "BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - Two healthcare workers were arrested after live-streaming themselves abusing an elderly person in their care, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office said.  The live-stream video shows two women allegedly verbally abusing and taunting the woman who also has dementia."   Let's ban video next. After prison, these 2 animals should be banned from ever again working with the elderly. 

A normal reaction to losing your job: "At least five people were killed in a mass shooting Monday at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, police said. The shooter, identified as a 25-year-old male, was employed at the bank, police said. The shooter's 'weapon of choice' was a rifle and he was shot and killed by law enforcement, police said. The gunman live-streamed the attack on Instagram."

Grow up and get a life! "The shooter, Nashville resident Audrey Hale, had no previous criminal record before opening fire at The Covenant School, killing three children and three adults, authorities said. 'There’s some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school,' Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told Lester Holt of NBC News."  Right. So you come back 20 years later to kill innocent kids?

Also: will the 24-hour cable news channels please stop talking endlessly about the murderers and showing their names and faces? The more attention they give to these maniacs, the more they inspire the next mass killers and abusers who want notoriety.

The Whole World Has Gone Insane

Another mass murder today: 4 killed, 9 injured in a Louisville bank by yet another cowardly terrorist. They are saying he was possibly a bank employee, possibly suicidal, and definitely live-streaming his murder rampage. If nothing else, he got the notoriety he craved, helped by the 24-hour media's constant coverage. Congratulations to the police who responded so quickly and prevented a terrible situation from getting even worse.

If you haven't already done so after reading the first item, please take tranquilizers now: "The Dalai Lama apologizes for asking a young boy to suck his tongue." No, this isn't from Saturday Night Live, it's from NPR. Just read that headline again, out loud. Do you think it just might be time for him to retire?

But I Thought COVID Was Over!

"Covid-19 News Live Updates: Maharashtra’s daily Covid cases near 1,000-mark as Centre sounds alarm over spike across India"

Hold Your Tongue -- Permanently!

"The latest 'inclusive language' guide offering comes from Michigan State University where now even words like 'bunny,' 'gift' and 'nickname' are considered offensive."

What's really offensive is that instead of teaching kids how to deal with the real world, schools are still indoctrinating them with infantile rules. I'm not about to stop saying "bells", "gifts", or "nicknames" just because a few coddled babies can't seem to cope.

Stop whining, and grow up already!

Maybe Next Time, Say "Hey, You!"

I am so happy I grew up in normal times when calling ladies "ladies" wasn't considered a "micro-aggression", whatever that even means.  We didn't need "safe spaces" back then. No wonder everyone today is so fragile and can't even deal with everyday common words!

--------------------------------------------------

Easthampton superintendent candidate offer revoked after addressing school committee as ‘ladies’

EASTHAMPTON, MA. (WGGB/WSHM) - The offer to the final candidate for the superintendent of Easthampton Public Schools was rescinded Thursday.

Candidate Vito Perrone told Western Mass News they voted to rescind the offer in an executive session. The reason behind it: allegedly a perceived “microaggression” in an email he sent to school committee members.

“What really rankled me was the people the community of Easthampton is always its usually supportive and welcomed me,” said Perrone.

He told Western Mass News he was notified by the chairperson of the school committee that his offer would be taken away due to an email he sent to the school committee chairperson and executive assistant to the committee.

We obtained a copy of the email that lists negotiations, including more vacation time. He explained the main focus, was him addressing the school committee as quote “ladies” at the beginning of his email.

“She explained to me that they were insulted by the address, and I said well I grew up in a time the sixties seventies when ladies and gentlemen was a term of respect,” said Perrone. “That’s how I intended it, and I didn’t mean to insult you and was basically told my apology didn’t mean anything and they were going to rescind the offer.”

Biden: Not Too Bright

As New York magazine's The Strategist reports, "The New Light Is Bad. There’s something off about LED bulbs — which will soon be, thanks to a federal ban, the only kind you can buy."

Thanks a lot! And thanks to inflation, these expensive bulbs will be even more costly. I'll be ordering more incandescent light bulbs very soon!

Giving Up on COVID

From Fortune Well: "'Everyone is kind of tired and has given up’ on COVID. But this new variant is ‘one to watch,’ the WHO says."

"The World Health Organization has its eye on a new COVID variant thought to be driving a new surge of cases in India—at a time when reported cases are down in much of the rest of the world. XBB.1.16, dubbed 'Arcturus'  by variant trackers, is very similar to U.S. dominant 'Kraken' XBB.1.5—the most transmissible COVID variant yet."

How you can give up on a deadly virus that's killed millions is a mystery to me, but unmasked fools continue to behave recklessly.

And from The Guardian:  "Covid booster vaccine to be offered to millions in England next week. Care home residents will be first to receive spring top-up jab as infections in England hit 2023 high."

I sure hope we're allowed to get this second booster here in America, despite Biden's assurance that COVID is over!